“Weakening these safeguards could damage our natural resources in ways that would take many, many years and taxpayer dollars to recover from,” she said.

Deregulation

The period analyzed by EPA includes eight years of activist environmental regulation during former President Barack Obama’s tenure.

Since the election of President Donald Trump two years ago, federal air and water regulations have been weakened, most notably in coal-producing regions.

Asked if the proposed regulation rollbacks will affect the future discharge of pollution, EPA Spokesman John Senn said the agency expects to see continuing improvement.

“We anticipate continuing to see positive performance with continued implementation of environmental regulations combined with the trends we’ve seen in 2017 of environmental stewardship practiced by companies across industrial sectors,” Senn said.

A spokesman for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection declined comment on the EPA’s numbers.

Privately, state sources said EPA’s release of the pollution data was a public relations ploy by a federal agency under fire for weakening environmental protections.

Connecticut has sued the EPA over failure to enforce air pollution regulations on Midwestern factories, claiming that pollution drifts into the state on the prevailing wind.

The state opposes Trump administration proposals to scale back auto emission standards and air and water regulations enacted by Obama.

Varying success

Town-by-town comparisons in Connecticut for toxins show the pollution numbers vary year to year, with some years higher than others.

Senn said the numbers change from town to town because each community has different facilities that emit pollution.

”If there are only a few facilities, air pollution changes from one facility can have significant changes for an entire community,” Senn said.

Since 2007, EPA said air pollution releases fell 57 percent at industrial facilities submitting data to the agency.